Ummmm, IMO She did not prove her innocence, she was found not guilty. There is a huge difference.....(think O.J.)
GA - *ACQUITTED* Tonya Craft, teacher, faced 22 false counts of child molestation
- Thread starter Linda7NJ
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Ummmm, IMO She did not prove her innocence, she was found not guilty. There is a huge difference.....(think O.J.)
waltzingmatilda
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joeskidbeck
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It is my utmost prayer that this judge and both the ada's face CRIMINAL charges for false prosecution. Probably won't happen, but they should at the very minimum lose their jobs. They knew very well this was all bogus. If you lived in this area and knew the people involved, you would be as convinced of this as I am. At least Tonya's defense lawyer was on the phone with the FBI immediately following the trial. I have already written Georgia's attorney general and I won't stop until this man explains to me how this was allowed to happen. The most disgusting part of this is that REAL child molesters get off with a slap on the hand and go right back out and do it again!There are people who will always believe that if a person is accused, then by God! they are guilty. That is just not so. Tonya has even been disparaged because her family had the money to provide her defense. They used all their savings and mortgaged their house because they knew their daughter was innocent. This is all I am going to be saying on this matter. I have been praying for weeks about this and God answered my (and lots of others) prayers.
lillygator
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do you have children? In several of your posts you state that children don't lie and can't be that coached.....um yes, they can - and they can be easily coached into telling what to say.
childcare providers put diaper cream and the like on all the time??
glad she was found not guilty. Hope she gets her kids back.
Belinda
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joeskidbeck - I hope that if you hear back from the Attorney General, you will be kind enough to post it. I would be fascinated to know what their take is going to be on this. I feel like there was some egregious behavior and bias shown in this trial and I sincerely hope someone is going to be taking a look at that.
joeskidbeck
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I will gladly post his reply here. As an aside, the AG of Georgia is running for governor this term. I'm sure that I am not the only one who has contacted his office about this case, so it should be in his best interest to come out with some sort of statement. This whole thing has really embarrased me. I love my state, but this is reprehensible! :cry:
joeskidbeck
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One more thing. If you're having trouble believing that the jury did the right thing please go to the following link and read all the coverage this reporter did on the trial:
http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12315163 This has a day to day synopsis.
I wish I could point you to a link that had the exact transcripts, but the judge refused anyone to have recording devices and only the members of the press were allowed to take notes. Maybe since the trial is over the actual transcripts will be released. But be forwarned you will not be able to believe what went on in this courtroom.
http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12315163 This has a day to day synopsis.
I wish I could point you to a link that had the exact transcripts, but the judge refused anyone to have recording devices and only the members of the press were allowed to take notes. Maybe since the trial is over the actual transcripts will be released. But be forwarned you will not be able to believe what went on in this courtroom.
Belinda
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I have always been one of those people who assumes that if someone is charged with a crime, they are guilty. But, in this case in particular, the more I read the more flabbergasted I was by her obvious innocence and the assinine behavior of the judge. This combined with all the DNA exonerations over the last few years is definitely making me see things in a whole new light. I am truly frightened by the number of innocent people who sit in our prisons. And it has been shown, in so many cases, that the prosecutors knew they had the wrong person and got them convicted anyway. Since they have immunity, I guess they feel no pressure to worry about railroading somebody. This immunity must be removed. They must be held accountable when they have clearly acted in a dishonest and unjust manner in order to get a conviction.
Stepping off my soapbox now.
Stepping off my soapbox now.
What's really sad about this whole thing is that aside from the courtroom appearance, Tonya hasn't seen her children in 2 years. That's a long time for the father, stepmom, et al to brainwash the children. Even if she gets custody or visitation, it could be detrimental to the children only because Tonya has no doubt been painted a villain by them. If her daughter really believes she was molested by Tonya, how will she react to having to spend time with her mother? Flip side of that, if the daughter was only saying what she believed her dad & interviewers wanted her to say and she knows deep down she was lying, it could be very damaging with the guilt she might suffer as she grows up.
IMO, there will have to be lots of counseling to mend the damage. It's bad enough for children of divorce when one parent or both trash the other, but this case takes bad to the nth degree. I'm sure this is confusing for her children all the way around.
IMO, there will have to be lots of counseling to mend the damage. It's bad enough for children of divorce when one parent or both trash the other, but this case takes bad to the nth degree. I'm sure this is confusing for her children all the way around.
I love ya' Linda and I agree with many of your posts. But I'm not sure why you find it impossible or improbable that this woman was railroaded. Anyone who has ever really researched the child abuse witch hunts that occurred several decades ago across our nation will realize that children do and will make highly detailed FALSE statements about what someone did to them.
I watched a video of one of the girls in a central California witch hunt case, being interviewed. She was asked if a certain person ever molested her. Her body language was quite telling. She threw her upper torso back very hard and fast while saying "No!" with a disgusted look on her face. She was about five years old at the time. Several interviews later (much of which included statements to her such as, "It's okay to tell me what happened. You know your friend said Mr. So and So touched her privates. We are so happy she was so brave to tell us. Can you be brave?"), the child came up with detailed graphic statements about abuse which ten years later she believed wholeheartedly as they had been so imbedded in her mind by praise and repetition.
The same thing happened in the McMartin preschool case out her in CA. At the end, the preschoolers had such fantastic tales about being raped in airplane rides in the sky (during preschool hours), people being killed and sacrificed, hours long satanic rituals in which they were molested, raped and tortured by numerous people for hours (during preschool hours), that it became ridiculous. IIRC, the case began to fall apart somewhat when some of the kids began accusing the wrong people, like cops and interviewers.
In other cases, there are children who are pathological liars who make up incredible stories, sometimes about abuse, either due to mental illness or due to mental issues that involved actual abuse of them by someone else in the past. I had a little friend like that. She was seriously physically abused and all us neighborhood kids knew it but never told. Her dad would strip her and whip the crap out of her. She showed me the blisters. She told me horrible things about seeing her parents "f$%&", and this when we were only seven or so. I was appalled, had never heard such language, but she knew it. She lied about silly things at first, like having horses, trying to make her sad life seem better. As she got older, her lies became more frequent and bizarre.
When I got older, I finally called a child abuse hotline after she had been moved from school to school and then removed altogether from school and held captive in her room for several weeks. She was taken away and we saw her on visits out of foster care, but by that point the child (then 12) was so messed up she made up dangerous stories. She told us that she was having sex with the foster parent's 17 year old son. She told them my teen brothers took her to a rock festival miles away and that she was having sex with them. This was untrue as we only had her for a few hours a couple of times and it was me, my mom and her going to the movies and to eat. The foster family gave her back because she told so many graphic and dangerous lies.
Also, there are instances when kids just want attention or are spiteful and are exposed to graphic information from friends or other situations, perhaps inadvertently, and go off that to create a completely false story. Three 11 year old girls in my neighborhood accused a homeless guy a few years back of raping them. They were very detailed about it. They eventually confessed that they made it up for "fun" and didn't know it would get so big.
The fact that one of the accusers in this case is a professional child actress who played the lead role in a film in which her character was abused, that's the red flag to me. If she learned about sexual abuse in the film, I could see her teaching her friends about it.
Kids do make up stories. More often, however, in the case of false accusations, they don't make anything up. Instead, they regurgitate false stories which are spoon fed to them carefully, sometimes subconsciously by bad child abuse investigators, or hysterical parents.
Can kids who adore their parents lie about them? Sure, especially in divorce situations. I have seen it in my own cases. It's called brainwashing or parental alienation.
Finally, we say "witch hunt" because of a very famous case of false accusations that occurred right here in the USA and that has haunted our history ever since: The Salem Witch Trials. Girls of all ages came up with incredible accusations. They were able to contort their bodies in impossible positions. They screamed, suffered and some almost died from exhaustion and lack of food. It went on and on and as they continued to give detailed descriptions of the acts of the accused, including satanic rituals, torture and "familiars" that sucked the witch's fingers, etc, more and more people were hung or imprisoned in horrific conditions, including a four year old witch who went irreversibly mad after being chained to dank wall in a dark prison for several months. So yeah, Linda, I would say that little kids can make up false stories and some very detailed ones at that. Surely you don't think those kids were telling the truth?
P.S., I don't think the stories in this case were that detailed. Especially the ones from the kids who said they know Tonya molested them because their parents told them so.
P.S.S. Sorry this is so long!
No, being found "innocent" is not an option. It's either guilty or not guilty.
This really isn't a fair conclusion because option of "innocent" is not even given to the jury. Using your logic, everyone who goes on trial is guilty but some might get off.
Hey everybody - please remember - we are all entitled to our own opinions and we don't try to change the opinions of others.
You may point out the facts of the case, etc. but you may not attack another's opinion.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Salem
You may point out the facts of the case, etc. but you may not attack another's opinion.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Salem
waltzingmatilda
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I would love to see a trial transcript of this case. Have any of you heard if they will be released? Could they be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act?
No need to file under Freedom of Information Act...it's a public record. Sometimes in high profile cases they can be accessed online...sometimes not. I am just not willing to pay for them. They can get quite pricey.
waltzingmatilda
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Thanks for the info LindaNJ. Maybe some media outlet will obtain them for us eventually.
wm
wm
joeskidbeck
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Good morning everyone! The transcripts are available. Tonya was told that it would cost her $21,000.00 to get the complete copy. I don't know if this is some sort of "special" copy or what, but that's a lot of money. Does anyone have any idea why a transcript would cost so much?
I saw the amount on one of the websites that have been following the case since the beginning and they are hoping that people will donate to a special fund in order to help raise the money.
waltzingmatilda
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Oh. My. Gosh. I had no idea that it would cost so much. I think she should receive a free copy of HER own trial transcripts (less cost of paper and ink) as a courtesy considering there was a NG verdict, JMO.
Why would it cost so much? It would be interesting to request the cost of a transcript of a totally separate case in the county there just see if there are cost discrepancies. Perhaps the charge is for each page. Twenty one thousand dollars seems like an exhorbitant amount to me even with paper, ink and toner added in. Heck, I'd be willing to bring my own printer to make copies.
MOO
wm
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